


See The Light In The Dark

by aewgliriel



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: DameRey, F/M, Het, JediPilot, Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:47:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21887665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aewgliriel/pseuds/aewgliriel
Summary: CONTAINS SPOILERS!Post-Rise of Skywalker. Rey and Poe talk about family, new beginnings, and other revelations.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Rey
Comments: 49
Kudos: 204





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS NOT A REYLO FIC. I am very anti-Reylo. But this story does acknowledge events in “The Rise of Skywalker”.
> 
> Title is a lyric from “Hurt People Hurt People” by The Script.

It’s only after she’s buried the Skywalker lightsabers and built her own that Rey lets herself really take in all that she’s been through recently. She sits on the rim of the courtyard of the old Lars homestead, having found her way there through the promptings of the Force. Neither of her teachers had told her of this place in life, but somehow she’d known to come here.

Letting her hands hang between her knees, Rey watches the twin suns set. She’s tired, drained emotionally and physically. Poe and Finn had fussed endlessly over her after Exegol, making her see the medic because, as Finn reminded her even though she hadn’t told him, she’d _died_.

Finn, she knows, is Force sensitive. So is Jannah, and the other troopers who had deserted the First Order to hide on Endor. She’s thinking about training them. She should; she’s the last of the Jedi and she should teach them to use their gifts for the good of the galaxy.

Not just yet, though. She needs to recover. That’s why she’s taken this time here, where Luke came from, so she can get her head on straight before taking on the responsibility of reviving the Jedi Order. It reminds her of Jakku, the peaceful solitude of her former home inside the old Imperial walker.

And isn’t that ironic? Rey thinks. The Battle of Jakku had been the last-ditch attempt of the Empire to win, though their Emperor was gone. She’d lived hidden from her grandfather in a war machine created on his orders, making a meagre living by stripping down his Star Destroyers bit by bit and selling the parts.

Rey doesn’t remember her parents well, just vague memories of their faces and their fear, but she thinks they’d have appreciated the irony. It occurs to her that she doesn’t even know their names, either real or the false identities they were living under before they sold her.

It still stings a bit to know that they had done that, left a frightened five year old in virtual slavery, instead of any other option they could have taken. But where else could they have taken her? To Luke, or Leia? Even Luke Skywalker couldn’t keep her grandfather out of his nephew’s head. How could he have protected her, hidden her? Would he have taken her to Ach-To with him, raised her as his own? Unlikely.

She hasn’t thought about Ben in days, not letting herself. The only person she could have told about any of it had died. Finn and Poe definitely wouldn’t understand, especially about … those last moments.

The bond is gone, now, with his death, and Rey feels different. Like a blindfold has been removed. How long? she wonders, watching a small lizard scurry across the sand in the courtyard below, barely visible in the twilight. How long had they been tied together? How had Palpatine done it, and when?

Part of her mourns the loss of it, but she knows, with a clarity she hadn’t had before, that her attraction to him was artificial. Snoke- _Palpatine_ had even said as much, during that first confrontation when Kylo Ren had killed him. The Force bond wasn’t natural. Her feelings weren’t to be trusted.

And she can see that now, as darkness settles on this part of the desert planet. He had been lonely, desperate for someone to understand. She had been lonely, too, by herself for so long. She was young, with so little experience. Even now, she’s only twenty years old. She feels both incredibly naive and world-weary at the same time.

She liked the idea of Ben Solo, she thinks, but not the man himself. How could she have wanted him, really, after the things he had done to her, the way he had killed so many people, his own father included?

Rey is grateful he revived her. But now that she’s free of the bond linking her to him, she realises that’s all she feels. Grateful he rescued her, that he at least tried to change his ways. Whatever his reasoning behind it—and she wonders if he even knew himself if it was selfish or selfless—he saved her life at the cost of his. But she owes him nothing, not even the piece of her heart that she’d foolishly thought she could maybe give him. He might have died Ben Solo, but it didn’t excuse the things he’d done as Kylo Ren.

She looks at the lightsaber in her hands, built from the remains of her quarterstaff. She’d been drawn to a place on her way here, a planet that the Force had urged her to visit, a world devastated by a cataclysm that had carved a third of it away, sucking its once-beautiful oceans into a crater that left it lopsided, like a muja fruit with a huge bite taken out of it. She’d walked the dry, white earth at the edge of the hole, following the whispers of the long-dead, and had, quite by accident, stepped on a chunk of kyber crystal. Or perhaps not so accidental, really.

Rey had picked it up, unwound the wire someone had, long ago, wrapped around it. She’d incorporated that wire into her lightsaber, wondering who had carried the kyber before. It had been a necklace, she thought, and whatever event had devastated that planet, its owner had died there.

She hears the ship approach before the freighter appears, passing overhead with its engines glowing with blue efflux before it turns and settles in the sand on the far side of the old homestead. Rey doesn’t move, just waits as the shuffle of boots in sand gets louder.

Poe lowers himself to sit beside her, mimicking her posture before nudging her with his shoulder. “I know you said not to come before you called for me, but I got bored.”

She smiles a little. “You’re very impatient, you know.”

“Ehhhh, only most of the time. When it’s worth it, I can be the most patient man in the galaxy.”

At that, she laughs aloud. “You, patient? I’d like to see that!”

He holds out his hand. “Lemme see it.”

“See what?”

“The lightsaber you said you were gonna build, with that crystal you picked up on Scarif.”

“Oh, is that what that planet is called?”

“Yeah. It was one of the first casualties of the first Death Star. General- _Leia_ told me about it. First they hit a place called Jedha, then Scarif. Trying to stop a bunch of rebels from taking the plans they’d snuck in for.”

She hands him her new weapon. He points it away from them and thumbs the switch. His eyes are black in the yellow glow. 

“But they got the plans,” she says.

“They did. Sent ‘em up to Leia in orbit. They all died. Luke actually named his old squadron after them. They were Rogue One, so he flew Rogue Squadron ‘cause he finished what they started. That X-Wing you got from Luke? That ship fired the shot that blew it to hell. And the _Falcon_ blew up the second one. The one on Endor.”

He abruptly turns the lightsaber off and hands it back. His fingers are warm as they brush hers when she takes it.

“I’d rather not think about Endor,” she murmurs, memories flashing to the moment she drove Kylo Ren’s lightsaber into his own stomach. She pushes it away.

“You ditched me there,” Poe points out. “Me and Finn. The droids. The _Fal_ -”

Rey cuts him off. “I know. I… was frightened. I wanted to go hide.”

“You, scared? You’re the most fearless woman I know.”

She licks her lips. “Scared of myself. Of what I did to that transport. Of… what Ren told me.”

“What did he tell you?”

“Who my parents were.”

Rey knows that Leia knew. She doesn’t know if Leia told Poe at any point. He doesn’t ask, either because he already knows or because he’s waiting for her to decide to tell him.

“Palpatine was… He was my grandfather.”

When Poe doesn’t reply, she rushes on to say, “My father was a good man. He rejected his father. I remember now, my father teaching me the Force. Just little things. How to hide myself, mostly. I forgot until… Ren forced me to remember. I built a wall so that he wouldn’t find me. And I forgot my parents.”

Poe is quiet for a long time. “Luke’s father was Darth Vader. Leia, too. And they were some of the best people I’ve ever known. So if you think I’m gonna judge you because your grandfather was a psychotic Sith, I’m not. Hell, I’ve done some bad.”

“Yeah, _Poe the spice runner_.”

“I’m not proud of that. But I can’t change it.”

“No, _General_ , I think you’ve done plenty to make up for it.”

He snorts. “Kriff. Me, a general. Never thought I’d see the day. Finn wears it well, though, I think.”

They both chuckle quietly, knowing Finn is just as uncomfortable.

“So what now?” Poe asks. “You gonna teach Finn and the others to lift rocks?”

“To start. I don’t know if I’m ready. I don’t know that I’ll ever be ready.”

He wraps a strong arm around her shoulders. “Rey, you took out the strongest Sith Lord of all time. How could you be anything _but_ ready?”

She leans into him, comforted by his confidence in her and his mere presence. They’ve argued fiercely but he’s one of her two best friends. Funny to think they only met a year ago.

“Maybe you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right. I’m always right.”

Rey pushes away just enough that she can punch him in the arm. He winces and says, “Ow!”

“Oh, I’m so sorry! I forgot about your arm. I thought I healed that enough so you wouldn’t bleed all over, but you were going to have a medic look at it?”

Poe's voice is wry. “I’ve been a little busy fighting a war. And, like, four hundred Star Destroyers, all equipped with planet-exploding lasers. You know, the average Taungsday.”

Rey huffs a laugh. “Come on. Let’s go back to the ship. I can fix that for you. For good this time.”

She springs to her feet and pulls him to his. They walk in companionable silence to the _Falcon_ , where BB-8 greets them with a happy chirble.

“It’s only been three days!” she laughs. “But yes, I missed you, too.”

D-O rolls out from hiding and says, “Hello!”

“And I missed you, too,” she tells the skittish droid softly. She doesn’t hold it against the small robot that its previous owner killed her parents. The droid was badly treated and deserves compassion.

She looks up to find Poe watching her with warm, dark eyes. Suddenly self-conscious, she demands, “What?”

“They’re beings to you, aren’t they? Like everybody else.”

“Of course they are,” she says defensively, then softens, knowing what he means. Not everyone out there, Finn included, sees droids as their own beings. But Poe does. Until her and Finn, Poe’s best friend was his astromech.

Might still be, come to think of it. She isn’t sure where she rates compared to BB-8, and turns pink, flustered at wondering why she’s suddenly jealous of the droid.

Poe’s already turned away, heading towards the common area. “I heard from Chewie,” he tells her. “Or from Maz, really. She says he’s still taking Leia’s death really hard, but he’s doing better.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Rey brushes sand off her clothes, thinking it’s been a long time since she’s had to.

“And Finn’s sent word. They’ve found the First Order headquarters and they think they’re gonna be able to track down Jannah’s family. Maybe his, too.”

“That’s wonderful.”

She looks up, mouth suddenly going dry, as Poe pulls off his shirt. She tells herself it’s because of the still-healing blaster wound on his upper arm, not the muscles and dark chest hair.

What in all the hells is wrong with her? It’s _Poe_. This isn’t even the first time she’s seen him without a shirt.

But, she realises, it’s the first time since that bond went away, and it’s occurring to her now that Poe is, well, very male, and shirtless, and they’re alone on the ship for probably the first time _ever_.

She remembers all at once their first meeting, when he’d introduced himself, and the way he’d smiled and said, “I know,” when she’d responded, “I’m Rey.” She’d had a little flutter then, and it comes roaring back down.

It’s completely different, Rey realises, to how she’d felt about Ben Solo.

Not thinking of him, she reminds herself.

She’s a bit brusque as she says, “Alright. Let me see your arm.”

He arches a brow. “I do something to piss you off?”

“... No. Sorry. It’s nothing.”

But as she places her hand on his arm, covering the partially healed burn, that it’s everything. This is the second time she’s healed him, but only the fourth time she’s used this ability. There was the serpent, and then on Endor. And she really doesn’t want to think about _that_ , with her hand on Poe’s skin.

Rey concentrates on finishing her not-precisely-competently-done healing of his injury, letting the Force flow through her. She doesn’t need to take it from herself now. She understands so much more than she did just days ago.

When she lifts her hand, the skin beneath is almost smooth, the scar faint as if years old, but pale against his tawny skin. She realises that she’s synced the rhythm of her breathing to his.

She looks up, green eyes meeting brown, and a shock runs through her.

“Rey,” Poe murmurs, and he sounds faintly surprised himself to find himself leaning in.

She wonders wildly if he’s going to kiss her, half wanting it and half absolutely terrified. She’s only been kissed once before, and it went terribly, what with Ben dying right in the middle of it. She still isn’t sure if he didn’t die like that because they were kissing. Oh, Force, what if she hurts Poe somehow?

She stops him at the last second, his mouth a breath away from his, her hand flat on his bare chest between them.

“I-” Rey tried to speak, but the words won’t come.

His expression shutters and he pulls back. “Sorry. I guess I misread things.”

“Poe- I- I- You didn’t.”

He stills in reaching for his shirt. His dark eyes watch her, waiting.

“I don’t know what this is,” she whispers. “I’m not… like Zorii, Poe. I’m…”

“I know, Rey. But I don’t want you to be like her.”

It’s there, on the tip of her tongue, the urge to confess that she kissed Ben Solo, Kylo Ren, and that the man literally died in her arms, but she doesn’t want to see disgust on Poe’s face, not aimed at her. And he would be disgusted. Ren tortured him, would have killed him if Finn hadn’t stepped in to free him.

Instead, she says, “Things… happened. On Exegol. I’m still sorting them out in my head. I don’t … want any of that to… touch you.”

He drops his shirt and cups her face in his hands. “Rey. I’m already in this as much as I can be. You know that. I may not have the Force like you and Finn, but I’m here. I’ll always be here. And I can wait. Like I said, I can be patient.”

“It might be a while.”

“War’s over, Jedi Master. I’ve got nothing but time.”

She smiles at the title, even if she isn’t sure it’s hers. Who decides that when you’re the last? “I thought you and Zorii…”

“Nah. I’ll have to tell you about it sometime. Minus the sensitive details.” He runs the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip. “When Finn told me he felt you die, before we found you on the ground, I realised… I’ve been insanely jealous of you and Finn.”

“Me and Finn?” She bursts into a short, sharp fit of giggles. “He’s my best friend, _you’re_ my best friend, but I don’t- I don’t see Finn that way. I never have.”

“Wasn’t he gonna tell you he loves you?”

“No. I mean, he _does_ , but not like that. I don’t know what he was going to say. It wasn’t that, though. Once, maybe. In the beginning. But no. He likes Jannah.”

Poe grins slowly and it does things to her insides. “Okay.”

She bites her lip, and smiles back.

He heaves a sigh and stoops to fetch his shirt from the floor. “Let’s go home. I’m tired of desert planets.”

“Where _is_ home?” she asks. “I don’t have one anymore. Not sure I ever did.”

Poe tugs the shirt on over his head, his dark curls mussed. “I know the feeling, kinda. But … Do you trust me?”

“Absolutely,” she replies without hesitation. “Unless it involves you _lightspeed skipping my ship_.”

“Oh, it’s _your_ ship now, huh?”

“It is. And if you want to keep flying her, you’d better be nice to me!”

His gaze drops for a moment to her mouth. “Oh, I can be _very_ nice.”

She flushes hotly and he laughs aloud. “C’mon, I’ll take you to _my_ home. It’s a place called Yavin IV.”

He holds out his hand. Rey looks at it, at the fingers scarred from years of working with tools and blasters, and lays hers in his.

As she follows him to the cockpit, he asks, “So now that you know who your family is, are you gonna go by that name?”

“No,” she says, as she sinks into the pilot seat, relegating him to co-pilot. “I’m Rey Skywalker now.”

“... I like it. Good choice.”

She smiles, remembering Luke and Leia as she’d last seen them. “I thought so.”

“Okay, then, Master Skywalker. Next stop, Yavin IV.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe gives Rey a tour of where he grew up, and learns the truth behind Rey’s hesitation.

It’s their fourth day on Yavin IV, on the small farm his parents had settled when they’d moved here thirty-some-odd years ago, when his father finally brings it up

Poe is leaning on the fence surrounding their crop field, the one his father had been preparing to till for the planting season, watching Rey as she meditates. This is something she’s doing from a position in mid-air, surrounded by rocks she’s been pulling from the soil below her.

She’s also upside down.

Kes Dameron comes out of the house, his big frame bent a little with age, and takes up a spot beside his son at the fence.

“What is she doing?” he asks.

“Meditating. And tilling the soil. I think.”

“Huh.” Kes eyes the young woman for a space, then says, “You’ve never brought a girl home before.”

Poe smiles, slow and content. “Yeah, well. Haven’t had one I’ve wanted to.”

“And this one is? She’s a bit young for you, son.”

The smile falters a bit. “I know. I know. Which is why we’re taking things slow. She’s been through a lot, and I don’t want her to regret anything with me.”

Kes blows out a breath. He still wears his silver hair cropped short, the way he did back when he was a Pathfinder in the Rebellion. His eyes are the same dark, dark brown as his son’s, the corners creased by years of squinting in the sometimes-orange light of the gas giant the moon orbits.

“This is really the Jedi who defeated all of the Sith?” the older man asks.

“That’s her,” Poe says, and can’t keep pride out of his voice. She’s his best human friend, or one of them, the other being Finn. Even if he wasn’t pretty sure he was in love with Rey Skywalker, Poe would be proud of her. His girl had taken on Emperor Palpatine and what she’d told him had been thousands of Sith, and she’d won. A Sith who could hop bodies like changing his clothes, who had electrified the entire atmosphere of a planet. And Rey had defeated him. Yeah, he’s proud as hell of her.

He also knows it had killed her. Finn had told him he’d felt her die. How she’d come back, she hasn’t said, and he thinks it has to do with the things she’d told him had happened on Exegol that she didn’t want touching him. The things that had made her scared to kiss him.

Rey is the bravest woman he knows, so anything that scares her has to be bad. He’s no Jedi. He isn’t Force sensitive like her and Finn. Poe can only guess at what horrors she saw on Exegol that would put that look in her eyes.

He hasn’t pushed. He wants to kiss her like he wants air, but whatever it is that makes her hesitate, he doesn’t want to cause her pain and anguish. It’ll happen when she’s ready.

His father is watching him with a knowing look. “You love her.”

Poe glances over, suddenly feeling like an awkward teenager again. He looks down at the worn wood of the fence, made from the colourful wood of the Massassi trees of the jungle surrounding the homestead. This particular log is sun bleached and splintery, the vivid orange and green ripples faded. He makes a note to do some work around the place while they’re here, like sand the rougher parts of the fence.

“Yeah, I think I do.”

“She feel the same way?”

Poe shrugs. “Pretty sure. But I dunno, Pop. It’s only been a few days.”

Kes arches a salt and pepper brow at his only offspring. “And you’ve brought her here already?”

“I’ve known her a year. She’s my best friend. This other thing is what’s new. I’d have brought her here eventually, anyway, even if we weren’t… whatever.”

His father grunts. Then he says, “If she needs a place to train Jedi, the old base up north might work. Can’t say how well the plumbing or electricity works, but I’ve been going up periodically, keeping an eye on things. For General Organa. In case the Resistance needed it.”

“We discussed coming here,” Poe tells him, “before Leia died. She thought it was too well known to use.”

The two men look up in unison, gazed drawn to the shimmering ring of debris that’s formed around the moon. Some occasionally broke free and fell to the ground, but most that was big enough to be pulled by gravity had fallen thirty-five years ago, after the initial destruction of the Death Star. There’s a large chunk of the wreckage not far from the farm, actually. Poe and his friends had found it when they were ten, and spent hours climbing around on it, pretending they were brave rebels fighting the Empire.

The actual experience of doing it was both more exciting and horrifying than he’d ever imagined as a child.

“War’s over now,” Kes says. “You should at least take her up there and have a look.”

Rey chooses that moment to come out of her meditation. She flips in the air, two metres off the ground, and lands lightly on her feet. The rocks she’s pulled from the dirt settle in a heap just outside the fence. She’s a little flushed, wisps of hair escaping her trademarked triple buns, and Poe thinks she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

Yeah. I’ve got it bad, he tells himself.

Rey easily hops the fence and props her lithe body against it. “Have a look at what?” she asks.

“Pop thinks he knows a place where you could start training people.”

Her green eyes flick to his face briefly, then focus on Kes. “Oh?”

Rey’s hesitation had only been a split second, but Poe knows her well enough to see it. She’s nervous about doing this, not sure she’s up to the task. He’s got absolute faith in her, though, and knows she can do it.

“The old Alliance base,” his father informs her. “Shara and I joined up just before Alderaan, came here. We hadn’t had Poe yet. Anyway, all the buildings are still there. Really old temples or something. Big pyramid things. There’s plenty of room, lots of places for students.”

Poe shrugs. “You wanna go check it out?”

“Sure. When?”

Kes says, “The weather’s good right now. I need to get started planting. You could go and get out of my hair. Take lunch with you.”

Poe exchanges a grin with Rey. “I think we’re being told to go outside and play.”

He leaves Rey at the fence, following his dad into the house to round up enough food for two for lunch. Poe grabs a little bit of everything; he knows from the past year of time spent with her that she lived off reconstituted ration packs for years, and water collected through a water vaporator that she’d built herself. She’s got food insecurities, that he’s never commented on, and there are many things she’s never tried that he wants to introduce her to.

When he steps back outside, she’s no longer by the fence. It only takes him seconds to find her, though, in her new favourite spot.

Nearby, a huge tree shades a seating area. Poe’s never looked up the species, but he knows from his mother’s stories that it had been retrieved by her and Luke Skywalker after the death of the Emperor from the remains of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. There had been two, he recalls his mother telling him, two little saplings that had somehow survived and grown in the ruins. Poe doesn’t know where the other one ended up, but he’s glad they have this one. The way Rey’s eyes had lit up on seeing it, the reverent way she’d run her fingers over its bark, made him smile. The big tree is Force sensitive, though Poe doesn’t know how that works. His mom died when he was eight, so she can’t tell him. And Luke Skywalker is gone now, too.

Rey leans against the tree, eyes closed with a serene smile on her face. She’s still got them closed when he stops beside her, and she says, “I love this place. It’s so peaceful.”

“I came out here a lot after my mom died. She planted the tree here, so I guess it makes me feel close to her.”

Rey pushes up to her feet. “The tree says it misses her.”

“The _tree_ misses her.”

Her smile is bright. “It says she came to talk to it. It’s not telling me in words, understand. It’s more complicated than that. Feelings, really. But she visited it every day and watered it while it was growing. It… understood she was sick but couldn’t help. It misses her still.”

“Wow.” He doesn’t doubt her, but it’s still a little beyond him. He reaches out, pauses, then lays his hand flat on the trunk. To his amazement, even though there’s no breeze, the leaves above them rustle as if the tree shivered.

“It says hello,” Rey murmurs. “And that you should visit more.”

Reluctantly, Poe lifts his hand from the smooth bark. He doesn’t understand it, but he’s seen enough to trust Rey.

They debate briefly on taking the _Falcon_ or leaving it where it’s landed, not too far from the Dameron farm. Poe finally convinces her to let him fly her in the old hopper that his father bought after his mother died. Kes couldn’t pilot an A-Wing, and though Shara taught him how, at eight years old, Poe had been way too young and small to reach the controls himself. The hopper is pretty ancient, a two-seater ship without hyperspace capabilities, just enough cargo space to transport goods to and from the market, and a battered exterior.

“What did you do to this poor ship?” Rey exclaims on seeing it.

“Why are you assuming it was me?”

She just gives him a look, and his answering grin is rueful. “Okay, okay. Yeah, most of those dents and scrapes are mine. Not this big scrape here, though. That was there when Pop bought it. It used to have a hyperdrive, but someone removed it long before we bought it.”

She runs her fingers over the Aurebesh lettering on the side, almost complete worn away. “ _Ponta Two_.”

He rolls a shoulder up, lets it drop. “Not our doing. I have no idea what a ‘ponta’ is. We’ve always just called it ‘the hopper’. Come on, climb in. Even at top atmo speed, we’re still about two hours south of the old base.”

* * *

Rey is quiet on the flight, and Poe finds he doesn’t want to fill the silence with anything. It’s unusual for him to be able to just exist in someone’s presence. Everyone’s expected him to be the inspiring leader all day, every day. Except Rey. 

Every once in a while, she asks about something out the front viewport, a creature or a geographical landmark. They fly over lakes and rivers, and at one point, a wide swath of relatively new growth that cuts through the jungle.

“Pop says that when the Death Star blew, it rained debris down on the moon for days. Big, flaming chunks of durasteel and other stuff. This part caught fire, burned for a week. There’s no native population to this moon other than animals, and it’s far enough away that it didn’t endanger the base, so they just let it burn while they evacuated.”

“The smoke from it must have obscured ship vision and sensors for days.”

“Another reason they did it. Not that anybody came after the Alliance here, that I know of.”

When they reach the old base, Poe lands the hopper smoothly on the old, broken tarmac outside the largest pyramid structure. Rey’s green eyes are huge as she looks around.

“This place is amazing!” she exclaims. “What are all these for?”

“No one really knows. I mean, we know from some artwork and stuff that the people were called Massassi, but they all died out a really long time ago.”

He holds out his hand. He’s amazed at how easily she slips hers into it, gracing him with a soft smile. Her attention is quickly drawn to the Great Temple, the main building of the old base, and Poe sees it all with new eyes as they explore the main hangar, accessed by a door to the side of the gigantic primary one, which he’s had the code to since he was twelve.

“I’ve explored this place pretty much top to bottom,” he says, “but there are a few places I haven’t had access to. Like the war room. Some officers’ quarters. If we’re gonna use this place as a school, we’ll need to figure that out.”

He hadn’t intended to say “we”, but it feels right.

“We?” She repeats it questioningly, but not skeptically.

Poe looks down at their joined hands. “I don’t wanna lead anything. That’s not me. A fighter squadron, sure. A resistance? Doable if scary. A whole galactic government? No. Nuh-uh. Not gonna happen. Leia had people in mind for that, and I’ve communicated with them. I know it’s chaos out there, but it’s been chaos for a while now. We can take a few more days. But once that’s settled… I’m tired. I need a break from fighting.”

“And… you want to take that break … with me.”

He stops, in the middle of the massive, dim, empty hangar, and tugs on their hands, pulling her just a little closer. “You know I would follow you anywhere, Rey.”

Poe doesn’t let the moment stretch into anything awkward. “Let’s go exploring.”

They spend several hours poking around the old base, which has been overrun by vines crawling over every surface of the brownish stone walls. The idea of using it as a school clearly grows on her, as she gets more and more enthusiastic as the day goes on. He just listens as she talks about student quarters, training rooms, where she could put a library.

Some of the old officers’ quarters are locked. Rey, ever the curious and resourceful scavenger, is even more determined to see what’s in the locked rooms than he’s ever been. Between her multitool and something with the Force, she gets them open one by one. The first two have nothing in them except old, musty cots. The third, however…

He looks at the datapads on the old desk, which is little better than a small table. A narrow cot with a chest at the foot of it holds some clothing, human male by the cut of them. Poe holds up a black leather jacket that looks about his size, still in amazing condition, protected from the humidity by the storage locker and the cool air of the locked room.

Rey’s already gathering up the old tech, the data sticks, stuffing them into a bag left hanging on the back of the chair pushed under the desk.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“I want to see what’s on these,” she says. “This was an officer. This could be important information.”

Poe can’t argue with that. “You know, it’s possible my dad knew this guy. Let’s take the trunk back to the house and ask.”

By the time they get down to the hangar, it’s started raining. He sets the old storage locker down just inside the door.

“... I don’t wanna go out in that,” he says wearily. “But our lunch is still on the hopper.”

Rey smirks at him and reaches out with a hand. He watches with wide eyes as the hopper lifts off the ground and comes to settle just under the overhang of cut rock.

“... I dunno if I’m ever gonna get used to that,” he says after a moment.

She looks at him with uncertainty in her green eyes. “Does it bother you?”

“Bother me? Nah. Impresses the hell out of me.” He jogs over to the hopper and shoves the trunk in, along with the bag he took from Rey, and pulls out their lunch tote. “One last thing I wanna show you.”

She follows him to the stairs. It’s a long, long climb, but he doesn’t know how the old turbo lifts are doing, even if they got some power restored through the old solar powered generators. They finally emerge, Poe somewhat winded, and he leads her down a short corridor. The old door is stuck a little, nothing a few good shoves of his shoulder can’t fix, and they step into a large audience chamber, one with a dais and nearly floor-to-ceiling windows open to the elements, though sheltered by another overhang to keep the rain out.

Rey immediately goes to the windows and looks out over the vista, awed by the view of grey rain clouds, green jungle, and, in the distance, a sliver of Yavin. “Beautiful,” she murmurs.

He steps up beside her, setting the tote down by their feet. Even though it’s cheesy and probably been said by countless beings trying to flirt, Poe says, “Yeah. The view is pretty great, too.”

She ducks her head, smiling shyly, and he’s struck with wonder that he gets that reaction from her. He reaches out and tucks a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. Rey leans into the touch, turning that green-and-amber gaze to his face.

“Kriff,” he whispers. “I’d very much like to kiss you.”

That look of fear he’d seen on Tatooine flickers across her face, and she tenses. “You said we’d go slowly,” she reminds him.

“Slow,” he agrees, “not glacial. What happened on Exegol that’s got you afraid to kiss me?”

It’s a strange fear to have, he thinks, to come from fighting a Sith Lord. He wasn’t there, doesn’t know what happened, too busy fighting an aerial battle and watching good friends die. Rey isn’t afraid of his touch, just of kissing him. How would fighting her grandfather, a mostly-decrepit, barely alive old man, cause her to fear _kissing_ him?

She jerks away and takes a few steps back, to another window. Shadow falls across her and then light as she passes along the wall.

“Talk to me, Rey,” he pleads, closing the space between him. She doesn’t shy away, though her gaze isn’t on him. He suspects she isn’t seeing the jungle moon, either, but the barren wastes of Exegol.

Rey wraps her arms around herself, shivering as a cool gust of air from the rain storm breezes in. Poe shrugs off the black leather he’d slipped on earlier and drapes it around her shoulders.

“Ren was there,” she whispers, so softly he almost doesn’t catch it. “On Exegol. I didn’t fight the emperor alone.”

He blinks, not quite able to picture it. “Kylo Ren was there? Fighting the emperor? _Why_?”

She bites her bottom lip, still not looking at him. “We both felt Leia die, on Endor. While we were fighting. I nearly killed him. I… don’t know exactly what happened, but he showed up on Exegol and… he was different. We didn’t talk about it. We didn’t get a chance to. We fought Palpatine. We were both injured. I… died. And he- Ben- He healed me, brought me back. And then he- he died.”

Poe isn’t a mind reader. He doesn’t know what she’s thinking. But for all his recklessness, he isn’t a stupid man, and he knows she’s had some weird connection to Ren the whole time he’s known her. He doesn’t know Jedi stuff, or how she’s always been able to tell when that bastard was around, but he can do the math on “he saved me and died” plus “fear of kissing Poe” and come out with-

“Did he kiss you?”

The thought of it makes him seethe. He’d been friends with Ben Solo once, long ago, but as far as Poe Dameron was concerned, Ben Solo died the night the First Order, and Kylo Ren, had destroyed the Jedi academy. The man had killed his friends, tortured him, had done things to _Rey_ , and the thought of that monster touching her makes him want to bring him back to life just to tear him to pieces.

She looks at him with tears in her eyes. “Don’t look at me like that. Please.”

“What? No. Rey, sweetheart- I don’t know what happened. But I’m not mad at _you_. I hate the thought of him touching you, hurting you.”

“I kissed him,” she whispers, and his brain just stops.

“... _What_?”

She looks down at her feet, pulling the jacket closer. Haltingly, she tells him of a life bond, some sort of artificial Force bond placed on them by Palpatine, connecting her to Ren for untold time, possibly years, that affected her thoughts and behaviours in ways she still isn’t sure of.

“It went away when he died, but while it was there, part of me thought…”

Rey doesn’t finish the sentence, but he understands what she doesn’t say. “So Palpatine made you think you were, what, in love with Ren?”

“Something like that,” she murmurs. “When he brought me back, everything was so muddled. He’d poured so much into me that I wasn’t sure what was me, what was him… I think he loved me, or thought he did, and it was so overwhelming. I kissed him, and then he _died_ , and…”

Poe holds up a hand. “Wait. Hold up. Are you saying he died in the middle of kissing you?”

Wordlessly, she nods.

He can’t help it. He bursts out laughing. She scowls at him and punches him right where she’d healed him just days before, on the arm. Still laughing, Poe catches her hand.

“I’m not laughing at you,” he tells her, trying desperately to stop the chuckling. “Here I was thinking he did something, forced himself on you, to hurt you. I’m relieved he didn’t. But yeah, it’s funny that Kylo kriffing Ren died in the middle of kissing someone. I’m sorry, I can’t help but laugh at the irony of it.”

“It’s not funny!” Rey insists. “What if _I_ did it? What if kissing me killed him?”

“Look, sweetheart, I wasn’t there, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work that way. He most likely died because he gave you all of his life force to bring you back. _Not_ because of a kiss.”

He slides his hand up her arm, to her cheek, and cups the back of her neck with the other.

“And even if it _was_ ,” he breathes, “we all know I’m a risk taker, anyway. I’m willing to try it.”

Poe tips her head back a little, and she lets him, sighing as he lowers his mouth to hers. He’s thought of nothing but this for days, and his blood sings as she goes soft in his arms, her own moving to wrap around him as she kisses him back.

When he finally lifts his head, she’s flushed and looking at him with a dazed expression, pupils blown wide.

“... Wow,” she gasps.

“See?” Poe whispers. “I’m just fine.”

Rey nods, still not quite focused, and grabs him to mash their mouths together. He laughs against her lips, pulling her close.

When they come up for air, he runs his thumb over her bottom lip, as he did back on the _Falcon_ the first time he tried to kiss her.

“I’m not gonna rush anything,” he promises. “But I’m gonna keep kissing you, because I can’t stop.”

Rey grins brilliantly and then burrows into his arms, tucking her head under his chin even though she’s technically almost as tall as he is. He kisses the top of her head and then turns his gaze to the storm still in full force outside.

He’s not happy with his new knowledge, but he’ll deal with it. Hard as it is for him, it’s got to be much worse for her, and he’s trying his hardest to be patient with her. Poe could kick himself for being so hard on her before, demanding she put herself on the front lines instead of training with Leia. He forgets sometimes that she’s only twenty, and she’s had so much dumped on her shoulders.

“You know,” he says conversationally, “I feel like a dirty old man, kissing you.”

She laughs as she hugs him. “You’re not old.”

“I’m thirteen years older than you, Rey.”

She shrugs as she lets him go. “Han was eleven years older than Leia.”

And Ben Solo, he thinks to himself, was only three years younger than him. Ten years’ difference. But he doesn’t point that out. Aloud, he says, “I didn’t know that.”

She pulls out of his arms, cheeks pink. “Now, how about lunch? We’ve been here for hours and I’m starving.”

“Yeah. Food. Good idea.”


End file.
